Death Can Be Beautiful
by Marissalyn
Summary: What if Laura was dead...until she wasn't


She's dead.

Laura Hollis is dead.

iYour/i Laura is dead.

You know you shouldn't think that way because she was never yours, even in death she hadn't been anything more than an alliance to you, your hearts too broken to be mended by simple apologies and life threatening situations. Death got her before you could get her back, and now you didn't know what to do.

Your life was now forever altered by what you were unable to avoid.

Your biggest fear and worst nightmare had come alive in your weakest moment.

Laura had tried to save you, and she did. She saved everyone. She saved Danny and you, and in turn died because of it. Someone had to pay the price that you and Danny couldn't. She had been the one to start it all. She had to be the one to end it. It was the only way she could accept it. Pay the piper she had inadvertently called upon in a state of confusion and inexperience.

You supposed you could have stopped her from sacrificing herself. Of course you could've, there had to have been a way. You just hadn't seen it then, or now really.

You've been locked in your room for a week. Or it had been a week at some point. You had stopped bothering to count the days. Laura wasn't coming back because she was dead. There was no point in keeping track of a lifetime you no longer were willing to experience. Not anymore. Not without Laura.

She died before you could tell her how much you loved her. How much you still cared for her even though the rest of your family was dead. She was gone before you could even manage to whisper every memory you had of her, every time you wanted to strangle her and every time you had wanted to kiss her.

You were robbed of a life with her.

You were robbed of a happy ending, PG13 or not.

Laura had been robbed of a life, whether it was to be with you or not.

You had both deserved a better hand of cards. You iall/i were worthy of more than this shitty deck of death and remorse, of fear and blame and anger.

You took to kicking things around, tearing up the upholstery and punching through drywall, smashing glass and lashing out against brick that crumpled beneath your knuckles. You ignored the tears in your eyes and the blood on your hands. None of it mattered anymore. Laura wasn't here to calm you down, talk you out of your own stupidity. She wasn't here to kiss it all better. She wasn't here to annoy you and love you and to just be there, here. She wasn't here and you were. How ironic that you were still living way past your expiration date while Laura hadn't gotten the chance to turn twenty. Life was cruel, somehow all these years later you still didn't expect the other shoe to drop in the way it always does.

You started screaming too. It was the only way you could empty your lungs of all of the unnecessary air you had breathed for Laura. It ripped your throat up. Tore into your ears with its piercing noise that you were sure could be heard across campus. A part of you hoped that she would hear you. Wherever she had ended up.

You knew her friends had yet to leave. You could hear them shuffle around on the first floor. The curly haired one still missing from the battle after she revealed that she was in fact not herself, but possessed by your mother instead. The brainiac barely moved. You could hear their shallow breathing as they tossed and turned in their light sleeping. You hadn't heard any talk or practice of science for a while now. Danny sat outside your door most days. She never slept. She mostly stared at the wall, like you had in the beginning. Now you were just mad.

You could hear big red flinch at your screams. Could sense her ripping her own hair out. Could practically feel her scratches on your own forearms, as you smelled the faint scent of blood in the air.

You couldn't feel for her.

You couldn't feel for anyone.

Not the way you were feeling for yourself, for Laura.

JP had gone missing as well. He had first returned with the three of you. Kirsch had too, he had been sent away by Danny though to help clean up the mess the battle had created, and JP had joined him. Neither had come back in days.

You were beginning to lose faith in ever getting over this.

You were beginning to think that Laura meant more to you than you could have ever anticipated. There had been no way you could have prevented yourself from loving her. No way you would have wanted to, because even though she was no longer alive, she had been the biggest part of your story. The stupid fairytale she had always spoken of had finally come to an end with a not so expected reality for a finish. She had been right. You had been each other's heroes.

Death could be beautiful; it could be gorgeous when the love of your life was succumbed to it. Blood could taste more like love than any other feeling. Words could matter more than you could have ever interpreted them to.

Laura had in no means been your beginning, but she sure as hell made for a great finale.

Your ears perked up at the front door opening. Immediately smelling JP. Sighing heavily you ignored your heart seeping further into the grave you had carved out for it in your stomach, and picked up the final piece of furniture you had yet to break and threw it as hard as you could against the wall. It went through two rooms before turning into a pile of splinters at the end of the hallway.

"Carm?"

You couldn't believe your ears. You had imagined it. You had been delusional for two days now. You couldn't tell the difference between whether you were unconscious or awake. It hadn't mattered for you to.

But there she stood, more vivid than you had ever imagined her to be.

She was paler now, no blush left in her cheeks and her eyes were darker. Her lips were redder and something about her was entirely off.

She smelled different. She held her self differently. She even sounded a tad bit different.

The only reason you second-guessed the illusion of Laura standing in front of the hole you had just created was because JP popped up behind Laura with an unsure quirk of a smile on his face.

"Laura?"

Laura nodded her head, stepping through the hole in the wall and closer to you. "Hey."

You stared at her unsure. If this wasn't real, if she wasn't actually there, you weren't sure you'd be able to take another blow like that.

"You're really here?"

Laura stepped even closer, infiltrating your space with her scent. "Yes."

You clenched your eyes shut, feeling fresh hot tears slipping past and down your face, dripping off of your nose and onto your shirt. Without another second of waiting, you met her the rest of the way and threw your arms around her neck, balling your hands into fists near the nape of it and pulling her close, breathing her in. "You're here."

"Thanks to Jeep, yeah."

Carmilla pulled back, frowning. "You're a vampire."

Laura nodded once more, "Yeah."

Carmilla's frown deepened. "You didn't want that."

Laura shook her head, "No, but I wanted you." She pulled Carmilla back in by her waist, pressing her chin into her shoulder. "Some things are worth the sacrifice. Even you."

"You died in my arms, Laura."

"Your reaction had to be believable."

Carmilla's back grew ridged, "Never keep something like that from me ever again."

"Never."


End file.
